Reference
Gmail sending limits for Google Workspace accounts
A Google Workspace account can send to 2,000 recipients in a rolling 24 hour period, or 500 when sending through the SMTP relay from an external client. Exceeding the limit suspends sending for up to 24 hours, and the counter is rolling rather than resetting at midnight.
| Recipients per day | 2,000 for a paid Workspace account |
|---|---|
| External SMTP client | 500 recipients per day |
| Recipients per message | 2,000, of which 500 may be external |
| Trial accounts | Reduced limits during the trial period |
| Block duration | Up to 24 hours, rolling rather than midnight reset |
Why the limit is counted the way it is
Limits count recipients, not messages. One message to 400 people consumes 400 of the daily allowance, which is why a single newsletter sent from a user mailbox can exhaust a quota that thousands of individual emails would not.
The window rolls continuously, so an account blocked at 4pm is not released at midnight. It regains capacity gradually as the sends from the previous 24 hours age out.
What to do instead of raising the limit
Bulk mail belongs on a service built for it, with its own authentication and unsubscribe handling. Sending campaigns from a user mailbox risks the domain reputation that every transactional message depends on.
Where the volume is legitimate and internal, splitting recipients across groups and scheduling across days keeps the account inside the allowance without a workaround that damages deliverability.
What we see that others don't say
Because the window rolls rather than resetting, the fastest recovery from a sending block is to stop sending entirely for a few hours; continued retries keep the recent count high and extend the block.
What this doesn't cover
- Limits are per user account and cannot be increased through the Admin console.
- Google applies lower limits to trial tenants and to accounts flagged for unusual activity.
Questions we get asked
- How long does a Gmail sending block last?
- Up to 24 hours. The account regains capacity as earlier sends age out of the rolling window, so access returns gradually rather than all at once at a fixed reset time.
- Does the sending limit apply to internal recipients?
- Yes. Internal and external recipients both count towards the 2,000 daily total, though a stricter cap of 500 external recipients applies to a single message.
How this page is verified
Reviewed by Pearl Lemon Cloud migrations desk, Google Workspace migration engineers. Last checked .
- Recipient and relay limits verified against Google's published Gmail sending limits at the review date.
- Rolling window behaviour observed on tenants we administer during blocked-send incidents.
Sources you can check
Related pages
Sending blocked in the middle of a campaign?
We separate bulk sending from your Workspace mail flow, authenticate both properly, and keep the domain reputation that your transactional mail depends on.